March 27, 2011

Another Torturous Tale of the paranormal, submitted by an anonymous author @ "Castle Of Spirits" (.com)...

"The Toilet Ghost"

﻿

"When going to college, I, like most of my friends, was broke...

I tried job after job to meet the financial needs of my drinking habits, entertainment expenses and of course, rent. But I could never find a job that I liked, it was either too boring, didn't pay enough..blah, blah, blah.

One day, my friend told me of a job where you would care for mentally handicapped people who were discharged from the local mental hospital a while ago.

I had relatively, no experience with these types of people, but I was willing to take on anything at that point. The position that I was hired for was an overnight shift.

Basically, I would stay up all night, watch for emergencies with the clients, help them to the bathroom, and get them up in the mornings. Pretty easy work. I could even do my homework there.

One night, I was sitting in the kitchen studying for an exam and I fell asleep at the table.I must have been sleeping pretty hard core, but I do know that I heard someone shuffling down the hall to the bathroom, stop by the kitchen, stare at me and then continue on their way.I woke myself up and groggily stood, then made my way to the bathroom to check on the client. I was in a pretty good daze, but I remember stopping at the bathroom door and peering in...It was dark, but I could see the shape of a man sitting on the toilet rocking back and forth. I cleared my throat and asked the 'man' if he needed any help. As I asked the question, he looked up at me and gave me the spookiest stare!I will never forget it, cold, vacant and slightly insane.He was drooling and I could see that he was missing teeth through his lunatic grin. I stared back at him and was horrified to realize that I didn't recognize him. There are only 5 residents in a house and this man was definitely not one of them. I backed away from the door and started to shake and became cold. The man dropped his gaze and continued to rock back and forth on the toilet.I turned and started down the hall to the bedrooms, turning on every light on my way down. I checked every room on that floor and everyone was in their beds, sound asleep. There was one guy who slept downstairs, but I just knew that he'd be in bed, fast asleep. As I passed the bathroom, I forced myself to look in, and sure enough, the toilet was empty, there was no proof that anyone had been in there!I raced downstairs, practically in tears from my fright, only to find that client was fast asleep, tucked into bed the same way I had left him, four hours earlier. By this time, I am freaking out and ready to call it quits and just leave! But I stuck out my shift, with every light on in the house, and the television blaring. In the morning, I told my supervisor what had happened, and I saw her face go white and she looked as I had felt that night.She told me to explain what he looked like, and when I did, she went to the bookshelves and pulled out a huge folder. In the folder, was the past history and medical files of a man named John who had lived there, but died of intestinal problems the year before. He apparently was a rocker..especially on the toilet. The past staff had problems getting him off the toilet in the middle of the night, because he liked it there. As I looked at the picture next to the medical files, I recognized the same smile...toothless, drooling and slightly insane.I wish I could say that I quit that job, but hey, the money was great!

March 26, 2011

A VOICE IN THE ATTICThere was an old farmhouse that, until it was torn down a few years ago, stood in the middle of a three-acre plot of land in Afton, Wyoming. At the time, the land belonged to my wife's grandparents, who had purchased the otherwise barren expanse in the spring of 1982 with the intent of building a home on the northwest edge of the property closest to the main road. The home was built, the perimeter fenced, and the rest of the land kept for the horses they owned. After toying with the idea of renovating the sixty- year-old farmhouse and turning it into a guest cottage, they decided against it and now only used it for additional storage space.
In the summer of 1997, my wife and I received an invitation from her grandparents to spend a few days at their home, and so we packed our overnight bags and made the three-hour drive from our home in Utah, looking forward to a weekend spent taking in the rustic scenery and relaxing.
For the record, I have always had a fascination with the paranormal, but my interests have been rooted in its more mundane aspects: horror movies, scary novels, and the occasional worthwhile TV documentary. My wife Jane, on the other hand, has always been a more willing participant in the pursuit of such topics and, as a result of her forays into the world of "ghost hunting", boasts a collection of self-taken spirit photographs to complement her library archives of EVP (Electronic Voice Phenomenon) audio recordings. The phenomena of ghost photography--a pursuit that's been around since the invention of the camera itself- -is something that, to my practical and reasoning mind, can often be dismissed as nothing more than double-exposure, the reflection of light, or water spots on a camera lens. What really captured my imagination, however, were the audio recordings. Some of the anomalies that I have heard on these tapes could easily be written off using more earthbound than otherworldly explanations, yet there are some that even a rational mind must admit are beyond the scope of common experience and understanding. In any case, beyond having heard or read about such occurrences, I had never had a personal experience with the paranormal. Not until the weekend that we spent at my wife's grandparents' home, in July of 1997.
We arrived in Afton late on a Friday evening, and after a few cups of coffee and conversation with the grandparents, we decided to turn in. Laying awake in bed talking, not quite able to sleep just yet, our conversation turned to the old farmhouse that stood about fifty yards off the south side of the house. This was my first visit here, and I was as much enticed by the farmhouse's seemingly ancient, decrepit beauty as I was impressed by its subtle yet unmistakable air of foreboding. I mentioned to Jane how creepy it had looked to me under the light of the full moon as we approached the house, and how perfect a setting it seemed for the types of hauntings I was ever so fond of reading about on dark wintry nights. I asked her what it was like inside. She responded by telling me she didn't know, she had never been inside. I found this strange, what with my wife's seemingly voracious appetite for all things frightening, not to mention the inner fortitude she'd always displayed in braving cemeteries at night armed only with flashlight, tape recorder, and loaded Nikon. Her answer was simple: "Grandpa's never let me inside. He's afraid the roof might cave in on me." With that, my curiosity was assuaged. But at breakfast the next morning, the germ of a notion that I'd planted in her head was alive and kicking and she broached the subject with her grandfather.
"It's a dangerous place, there's bats in the attic and I don't want you poking around in there," was all he would say when asked about it, attempting to turn the conversation from the subject at hand by asking if we wanted to ride the horses after breakfast. You have to know my wife the way I know her to understand that this would not satiate her curiosity, and you also have to know how persistent she can be to understand my mild shock when she simply let the subject lie.
An hour after breakfast, strolling out toward the horse stable for a midmorning ride, she turned to me with a mischievous gleam and informed me that we would be "investigating the old farmhouse" just as soon as Grandpa headed into town for groceries. I took this about as well as someone who's been informed of impending oral surgery, but I also knew better than to resist her will or let her go alone. The last thing I wanted on this quiet weekend was an upset wife or--far less--an injured one, so I acquiesced.
The sun was straight overhead and beating down hot as we approached the doorway of the old farmhouse with nothing but our wits in tow. I hesitated at the entrance, casting a glance over my shoulder to ensure no lectures about venturing into unsound structures would be delivered over dinner that night, but Jane walked straight in like a woman with a mission. I followed her inside, nearly tripping over a horse saddle that had been left just inside the doorway. The doorless entryway opened up to a fairly large room crowded with old cardboard boxes, and a large worktable stacked with bridles and old horse saddles. To the right, there was yet another doorway that led into a much smaller room (a bedroom, I supposed). The way into this room was made impenetrable by more stacks of boxes and crates. Off to the left, I saw an even smaller doorway that exposed a rickety flight of stairs leading, presumably, to the attic above.
The interior was fairly well-lit by the large cracked picture window that had at some point (and for reasons I never discovered) been painted over but was now badly peeling. The first thing I noticed was how the previous occupants had apparently plastered draft-holes in the walls with what appeared to be old newspaper. Closer inspection proved my initial assumption to be true, and I discovered the dates on the newspapers went as far back as the early 1930s.
Jane, now also having discovered the aged newspaper that crammed the draft-holes in the walls, was attempting to flatten out a large torn portion of a strip of newspaper that announced the destruction of the Hindenburg in Lakehurst in 1937. She called me over and we stood there marveling at it. I was mid-sentence, decrying the use of such a historical headline as hole-fodder, when we heard the thump overhead. In retrospect I wish we'd had a video- camera to record my reaction to this sound, because I nearly jumped out of my skin and my motions, although betrayed by my desire to remain cool in the situation, displayed a willingness to race headlong out the entryway of that place. But my legs and feet, loyal to my inner workings, took only a single step before falling into compliance.
Heads now turned upward to the blackened wood overhead, I started to mutter "Did you hear that" when Jane cut me off with a swatting of her arm and a sharp "Shhhhh!" Dead silence ensued for the next thirty seconds as we stood there, frozen, until I finally spoke again in a whisper. "Could be the bats your grandfather warned us about, let's go." But she would not be moved, her will would not be shaken. I was about to fire off some crack about the woes of having a ghostbuster for a wife when it came again, this time more distinct, not directly overhead but further toward the back of the structure, as of something in the far corner of the attic above our heads. Bats fly, I thought to myself, they don't walk and they certainly don't lay heavy footfalls in their wake. Immediately our heads turned toward the doorway to our left, the doorway leading to the short flight of steps into the attic. I asked her if she thought it could be a cat, or a bat finally given up the ghost of hanging upside down from a rafter in 100 degree temperature, but the silence of her response only served to shake me up all the more when it came a third time, actually loosening dirt from the rafters and punctuated by what I can only describe as a dragging shuffle on the floorboards overhead.
That was enough for me. I took hold of Jane's arm and gave a firm tug. "Let's go." But I know my wife, and I ought to have known better than that. Eyes still fixed on the first three steps leading up to the attic, head cocked sideways in an almost comical manner straining to hear, she whispered: "It sounds like there's someone up there." Now, I don't know about most people, but I don't do well with declarations such as those, under circumstances such as these. Anything bearing an even remote similarity to the typical fright-fest dialogue of "They're coming to get you" or (heaven forbid) "They're here" and I'm a running fool with feet flying out ahead of me like a leaper over hot coals. But I suppose that I would willingly trade bearing sole witness to any of those proclamations in exchange for what we heard next, which is something that my rational mind still grapples with, something that if I live to be 100 I will never, ever forget. The voice was soft, and low, muffled by the rafters and the overhead floorboards that separated us from the attic, and it called the words: "David, is that you?"
One moment we were in that dark, stuffy farmhouse, the next we were out in the bright sunlight with the breeze blowing in our faces as we stepped lively through the tall grass back toward the main house. It was that quick, that synchronous. At a moment when I must have realized that whatever courage I had would hold up no further and decided it was better to run than stand, Jane had also reached her threshold of tolerance and we both got the hell out of there. One very important fact--and I state this for the record--my name is not David, nor is her grandfather named David, nor do either of us know anyone by that name; strange as it may seem, the name being such a common one. What's even stranger is that you might think, once away from whatever danger we may have been in or imagined we were in, within the safety of sunlight and the dependabilities of the concrete world, we would have felt a rush of exhilaration or adrenaline--but it was quite the opposite. You'd think that we would have found ourselves a safe space somewhere and sat talking about what we had heard, or what we thought we had heard, but we didn't. We simply turned heels quickly, left, and not another mention of the experience was had that day until we found ourselves in bed again late that night, unable to sleep and unable to forget.
She brought up the topic gently, almost as if expecting me to stammer out a request to close the subject and leave it that way, but I found that once removed from the situation I was able to confront it with a little more ease. I told her what I thought I'd heard, and danced around a million different possible explanations for what it could have been- -everything from fillings in our teeth picking up a nearby radio station, to an old phonograph player that could have been stored up there and could have fallen over after fifty years and scratched out a snippet of song whose lyrics we mistakenly took to be some ghostly voice from beyond. I figured it was much easier to believe either of those scenarios than to consider any otherworldly possibility, but the explanation that occurred to Jane as we lay there in bed, sleepless, was a bit more frightening than any. "Maybe there's someone living up there that my grandparents don't know about," she said, and a look of startled concern came over her face.
The idea sent shivers up and down my spine, offering up images of escaped mental patients creeping onto unsuspecting people's properties in the dead of night clad in flowing hospital gowns, and it alarmed me to the point where I actually got out of bed, stood at the window looking out onto the property offering a clear view of the moonwashed farmhouse, and actually considered either going out there with a baseball bat in hand or calling the local police to check it out. But we could have been mistaken in what we heard, there could have been a rational explanation, and the last thing I wanted to do (apart from admitting to her grandfather that we had betrayed his wishes to keep out) was call the police to investigate the overactive imaginings of a young married couple. They'd probably ask us to provide urine samples for our troubles, and that was one place I didn't want to go.
So we determined that at daybreak, we would go out to investigate yet again. This time as we approached the farmhouse--not having mentioned our concerns to her grandparents for fear of causing probable undue worry--I was armed with a short-handled shovel I'd found lying on the grass and Jane, not entirely convinced the sounds had come from any earthly emanations, with a long-handled flashlight and the mini-cassette recorder she rarely left home without.
Our second entrance in as many days through the doorway of the farmhouse proved to be a lot more ordinary than my imagination had fancied it might be, and the notion that someone may have actually taken up residence in that ramshackle pile of sticks was quickly put to rest on second look at the conditions of the old house, and the likeliness that anyone attempting to climb up the flight of stairs leading to the attic would most likely crash through the rotted wood and break a leg, or worse. We stood listening in silence for what seemed like an eternity but what was most likely a few minutes. Nothing, no sounds except for the occasional crack of the old blackened wood settling. We decided that since we had come this far, we were damned if we were going to leave without a good and thorough search and so we set about the task of figuring out a way to ascend the steps leading to the attic.
I'd spotted a fairly fresh plank of wood about six feet long, two feet wide, and three inches thick, lying in the yard of the farmhouse as we approached, so I came up with the idea that perhaps we could lay the plank lengthwise across the top of the steps and crawl our way up. Jane's first attempt at laying any weight on the board caused a groan of the old woodwork underneath so severe that I insisted on attempting to reinforce it from below with several odd-length two-by-fours I'd also spotted in the yard outside. (We worked quietly in the light of early dawn, aware that to be caught rooting around like children in the old farmhouse against her grandfather's wishes would earn us a severe talking-to.)
Finally, after about half an hour, we had constructed our ascension ramp and, after another five minutes quietly arguing over who should be the first to go, I was shuffling up the length of the plank on my hands and knees, shovel at the ready. Jane's insistence that she should be the first to go was quietly overruled by my proclamations that if there actually were some crazy person living in the attic, the person with a weapon of defense ought to be the first to check it out. She finally consented--grudgingly so, for I have married a woman with the courage of two men--and with only a fleeting hesitation I was up and on my way. By this time the sun had emerged and the sunlight cast through the holes in the roof was good enough so that I could see everything before me. As I stood on the floorboards of the attic, determining if they were in well enough shape to sustain my body weight, I scanned the large area before me, shovel at the ready, probably looking like some deranged baseball player or a character in an old Sam Raimi flick. Strange how the fear which had gripped me the day before had now been swept away, and in its place something much stronger, borne most likely from the instinct to fight rather than flee, or the inexplicable instinct of territoriality over a place I'd never even been before.
When I look back on it I honestly don't know what I was expecting to see up there in the attic--but whatever it may have been, whether flesh and bone or otherwise, there was nothing to be found. Only the time-ravaged, weather-worn leftovers of the previous tenants' storage, which amounted to nothing more than a severely rusted bedspring, an equally old mattress leaning askew against the near wall, a scattering of empty crates, and a decrepit rocking chair that sat in the farthest corner of the attic facing the wall.
I stood there staring at the back of that chair until Jane's voice, directly behind me, startled me out of my daze. "So much for your phonograph theory." I turned around to find that as I'd stood there taking an inventory of the space before me, she had made her way up the plank and into the attic with me. She was aiming the beam of her flashlight and scanning every inch of the attic space before us. I followed its movements and acknowledged the absence of any overturned phonograph player I dreamt may have been responsible for what we'd heard. "So much for our stranger in the attic theory," I added, motioning to the inch-thick layer of dust that covered every visible square foot of the floorboards. If anyone had been in the attic, it was a long, long time before we had ever arrived. I'm not sure how long we stood there, but it was long enough for the two of us to determine that our notions (my notions) of homeless squatters or escaped mental patients seeking shelter--or bats, for that matter-- were completely unfounded.
As we turned to begin our descent back down our makeshift ramp, Jane stopped and fished a blank cassette out of her pocket and inserted it into the recorder. I said something like "Hey, don't bother, we're leaving" but she informed me that she was going to leave the micro-cassette behind in RECORD mode. She set it down on one of the floorboards just inside the attic entryway. "Just to satisfy my curiosity," she said. And we left.
We never did fess up to what we had been up to that day, or the day previous, when having dinner with Jane's grandparents later that evening. Nor did we tell them about the sounds we'd heard, or the voice we thought we had heard. We were set to head back home early the following morning and we both agreed it was far better to exchange pleasantries on the final evening of our visit rather than to choke the air with questions about previous tenants, the history of the land, or the possibility of spirits that linger after death. According to Jane, things like that didn't go over too well with her grandfather, who was, she said--in his youth as well as in all the time that she had known him--more practical-minded and rational than I ever was. Coming from Jane, I took this as a compliment.
We realized that in order to retrieve the cassette recorder Jane had left behind, we would not only have to brave the rickety ramp of our invention once again, but we'd also have to make it out there early enough so that her grandparents wouldn't see us. We also decided that it would be best to take apart the makeshift ramp, lest proof of our actions be discovered. So we resolved to wake up half an hour before dawn and sneak out to the old farmhouse one last time.
When we got there, this time stepping our way through the dark with the aid of Jane's flashlight, everything was just as we'd left it. No signs of any ghostly disturbance, no violently overturned boxes, no footprints in the dust other than those we'd created ourselves. I cautiously but hurriedly crawled my way up the wooden plank, reached a hand into the darkness, and retrieved the cassette recorder which was in the exact place Jane had left it the day before. We quietly removed the reinforcement two-by-fours and set them on the wooden floor in a neat pile, followed by the six-foot plank itself, which came easily enough and which we leaned against the inside wall.
I was just setting about the task of patting the dust and dirt from my pants legs when it came again. The same sudden, sharp thump that we had heard two days prior. My first thought was that Jane must have heard something moving up there before the thump sounded, because when I looked at her, her head was already turned upwards and her eyes were fixed on the attic entrance directly above us. My eyes followed her stare and I looked up, but there was nothing discernible in the darkness beyond the threshold. This time it was Jane's turn to speak first, and she began to ask me if I'd heard it too but her words broke off when another thud, this time more jarring than the first, almost violent in its force, sent a fistful of dust shooting from the rafters. The horrible, sickening shuffling sound came next, and the image that entered my mind then was that of someone, or something, dragging itself across the floor almost directly over our heads, approaching the attic entry. This time there was no resistance, no arguments to be put up against turning tail and leaving that place behind us for good. In an instant the two of us were stumbling through the dark toward the front entrance and within five seconds we were back out into the cool predawn air. But in the cage of memory, instants can sometimes stretch the length of an eternity, and impressions can sometimes last a lifetime--for as we passed through the doorway of the old farmhouse for the last time, we heard the voice again, this time much closer, coming from atop the attic stairs where we had stood only seconds ago, this time much clearer-- raspy, nearly gravelly, calling after us. And the words it said were "David... I saw you!"
In the time it took to clear half the distance between the old farmhouse and the grandparents' home--a mere fifty yards--I had managed to regain most of my composure and had slowed my trot to a brisk walk, though still casting furtive glances over my shoulder, ensuring my rational self that all was good, all was well in the world, and that nothing had taken up chase. Crazy thought, I know, but it was one that occurred to me and I wouldn't be surprised if it had occurred to Jane as well, despite her outward calm demeanor.
Jane had stopped about ten feet short of her grandparents' back porch and was studying the micro-cassette recorder closely. "It was turned off," she said, "halfway through the tape. As if someone shut it off on purpose." I tried to reason that maybe the batteries had run out, but she quickly dispelled that notion when she pressed the REWIND button and it kicked immediately into life. It only took a few seconds for the tape to reach the start of the spool, and just as she was about to press the PLAY button, the back door of her grandparents' home swung open and Grandma Perkins was standing there in her morning robe. "What are you two doing up so early?" she asked. "Just saying goodbye to the horses," Jane replied in a calm fashion, and within seconds we were back inside the house where the smell of brewing coffee awaited us.
It wasn't until we had packed our bags, said our farewells, and hit the road once again--all the while eyeing the old farmhouse as we made our way down the long gravel driveway headed for the main road--that we were finally alone and able to listen to what it was that may have been recorded. I wasn't certain that anything would have come through on the tape, but I wanted to be able to listen without having to strain to hear over sound of the engine so as soon as we'd gone about a mile, I pulled the car off to the side of the road under the shade of a tree and shut the engine off. The first sound head on the tape were Jane's own words ("Just to satisfy my curiosity"), then the creaking and groaning of the floorboards and the racket of our footfalls as we made our way down the plank and exited the farmhouse. Five minutes of silence ensued, only the occasional sound of the old structure settling in on itself, then another five or six minutes, the rumble of a truck driving by in the distance, then more silence. Just as the tape was about to reach the point where it had mysteriously stopped on itself, I heard something.
On first impression it sounded like someone breathing in short, shallow breaths. I was opening my mouth to tell Jane to stop the tape, rewind it, I may have heard something, when I realized the sound was only getting louder. I could tell by the expression on Jane's face that I was not, in fact, hearing things. She was hearing it too. What came next, though, sent shivers down my spine and made the sounds we'd heard in the farmhouse--frightening and inexplicable though they were--seem like nothing more than a precursor. The breaths seemed to be getting louder, and although no sound of movement could be heard, I got the distinct impression that something was drawing nearer to the microphone. It frightened me to the core to think that the very cassette recorder Jane now held in trembling hands could have come so close to, or may even have been touched by, whatever it was that was causing that horrible sound. The breathing faded, almost abruptly, followed by approximately ten seconds of absolute silence (not even the sound of the wood settling or a car driving by in the distance). Then the singing began. It was quite unmistakably, and most distinctly, the voice of an old woman--perhaps in her eighties, perhaps older--and although I could not make out the words, she was singing something. A lullabye, perhaps? To this day I am not sure, even though we've listened to the tape hundreds of times since and have tried amplifying the sound through various means. It is certainly not a melody I, or Jane, or anyone else we've shared the recording with, are familiar with, but by the very nature of its ambiguity, it has become an oft- controversial conversation piece among friends with similar interests.
But it isn't that horrible breathing or the faint yet undeniable strain of song delivered by that mysterious voice that still, to this day, years after the experience, years after the old farmhouse was finally torn down, years after the grandparents sold the property and moved away, haunts my mind in the quiet dark before sleep overtakes me. Rather, it is the final two seconds of that recording that will always stay with me, and will always serve as proof to my mind that despite our best efforts to argue to the contrary, there are things that happen in this life that are beyond the bounds of rational explanation.
The singing voice stopped abruptly, as though perhaps startled by itself, and was replaced by a dry, hoarse giggle--a hideous, insane laughter--that erupted into a cackle just as an invisible finger reached out, brushed against the microphone, and pressed STOP.

March 22, 2011

"A close personal friend related this story to me. He asked that I type it up for him because his own typing skills lack something to be desired (his own words, not mine -- scout's honor).

This is pretty much a verbatim transcript of what he told me, because while his ability with the word processor can be found wanting, his ability to spin an enjoyable yarn isn't half bad. I've changed the names of the people involved in the story at their request. So, without further adieu, I give you The Thing Outside the Window.

My name is Patrick Johnson, and the story I am about to tell is one hundred percent truth. While I will forever maintain that I am not lying, I'll be the first to admit that maybe I don't entirely understand exactly what happened that night. Maybe I'm remembering it wrong because it was such a surreal event, or maybe my mind is filling in the blanks with something more horrible than what actually occurred. But whatever the case, this anecdote is entirely as I remember it.

September 27th is my birthday. In 2003, I celebrated the big twenty-one. As is usually the case during such a birthday party, we intended to spend the night drenched in copious amounts of fine (read: cheap) alcohol. There was some talk of going on a group trip into town (I live in the country, about 35 miles from the nearest city) and spending the night at the bar, but none of my friends were willing to volunteer for the dubious honor of designated driver, so in the end we opted to go one county over (not only do I live an insane distance from the nearest town, but I live in a dry county as well) and pick up a couple of cases of beer, some whisky and some vodka. When I use the word party in relation to my 21st birthday, I feel I am being a bit disingenuous. It wasn't really a party in the traditional sense. It was just four of us (myself and three friends -- Matt, John and Alex) sitting around in the living room, eating cake and drinking alcohol. All in all, I'd say it was a pretty sedated event, very laid back and relaxed, that is until my bladder finally got the better of me, which sent me blundering into the bathroom... and into the dizzying events that followed.

The bathroom in question was quite small. Standing in the doorway, you could reach out and just about touch every surface in the room. To the right of the door was a bathtub/shower combination. To the left was the washbasin. Against the far wall, pinched between the washbasin and a head-high window was the toilet. The window over the toilet is the focal point of this particular tale, but let me give you an idea of what you see while looking out said window:
if you walk right up to the window, you'll find the toilet directly to your left. When you stand there to relieve yourself, you can turn your head and look out into the back yard. At night, however, there is very little to see. There is an emergency light that activates when it detects movement in the backyard, but otherwise it is fairly dark. At the rear of the yard is a line of pine trees (still green at the time, despite the slowly cooling temperatures) that act as the façade of a fairly deep forest. At the head of the forest's frontage are two small buildings. One, off to the far left of the bathroom window (and almost out of sight) is the garage. The second building is a small tin shack that stands on wooden legs. The lack of trim around the lower edge of the building allows you to see clear through to the other side during the day, but at night it's pitch black under there. So I walked into the bathroom, closed the door, and took the two or three steps between the entrance and the toilet. I glanced out the window as I did so. The night was clear and cool, and the moon was bright. I could see the tin building against the trees, and I could see the trees themselves swaying against a rather powerful breeze. Other than that, I noticed nothing out of the ordinary, so I set to the business relieving my booze-filled bladder. Before I had even finished, I could hear a sound outside the window. At first I thought nothing of it, probably because I was light headed enough from all the alcohol that it just didn't occur to me to notice it. But as I was finishing my business, the sound outside the window began to grow in pitch. I stood there silently for a couple of seconds, listening. It sounded like a low growl that was steadily rising in pitch, the kind of sound a cornered animal might make when its hackles are up, only there was something off about it. It sounded like whatever was making the sound had a throat full of fluid. There was a kind of bubbling; a gurgle, and it too steadily rose in pitch. It was only a matter of moments before the sound was nearly skull splitting, and I got the distinct impression that whatever it was, it was lingering below the window, right up against the house.

I zipped my pants, flushed the toilet and quickly exited the bathroom. I closed the door behind me, and still I could hear the sound. I walked down the hall and into the kitchen. It was empty. Alex, John and Matt were gone. For one panicked moment I thought that whatever was making the sound had gotten them (generally I'm not the panicked sort, but I must have been pretty close to drunk by this point, and my head was racing with all sorts of crazy ideas). Then, from the living room, I heard Alex's voice. "What is it?" he asked, and I could hear that he too was on the verge of drunken panic. I walked across the kitchen and into the living room. Alex, John and Matt were standing near the back door. To the right of the door was a large window with Venusians blinds. One of them had opened the blinds, and all three of them were peering out the window, across the right side of the house. The bathroom was just on the other side of the living room wall, and I understood then that they, too. had heard the sound and had gone to have themselves a little look see. I crossed the living room and touched Alex on the shoulder. He reeled, his fist held up in a defensive gesture, and I held my hands up in the air. "It's just me," I said. Alex relaxed (a bit) and pointed at the window. "You hear that, right?" "I hear it," I said, and pushed past him so that I could get a good look out the living room window. "It sounds like it's coming from near the bathroom window." John glanced at me, his gaze a bit hazy and not entirely all together, and I could see that he was holding one of my grandfather's old walking canes in his hands. He was squeezing the thing so hard that his knuckles were pale as a sheet. The four of us stood at the window for about a minute, peering out it, and all the while the sound continued to persist. It didn't get any louder and the pitch had leveled off in a disconcerting whine. "Hey!" Matt cried suddenly, pressing his hand against the window. "Look, I think I see something. God, look at it!" I pressed my face against the window and cupped the sides of my head with my hands, trying to cut the glare from the living room lights. My eyes moved slowly across the yard, first to the right, then to the left, then to the right once more. And then I saw it, too -- small and low to the ground, it came out from below the bathroom window and moved lazily across the yard. The thing walked in a crouch, knees bent, its arms hanging at its sides pleasantly. It looked to me like it was enjoying a lovely stroll out in the crisp night air. Now I admit that it was very dark out and we had all been drinking fairly heavily, but later we would discuss what happened that night and we would all agree on what we saw (even John, who remembered the least): the thing stopped midway between the house and the tin shack, looked over its shoulder, and grinned at us. With my face pressed against the glass and my hands shielding the glare from the living room lights, I could see it clearly in the moonlight. It was definitely grinning, and I saw its tongue flick out and run across its lips. I couldn't see its teeth. I didn't want to see its teeth. I think it was teasing us. Then I noticed its eyes. I try not to think that it was looking right at me, but it sure felt like it was (the others would probably say the same thing). The thing that had been the source of that gurgling growl outside the bathroom window had eyes like tiny, polished mirrors. They reflected the moonlight in a way that made my skin crawl (have you ever seen how a person's eyes seem to shine in certain types of night vision footage? It was like that, only a whole lot brighter.)
"What is it?" John asked, his voice low, trembling. "I don't know," I said, "but I don't like it." "How come it doesn't trip the emergency light?" Matt asked. It hadn't occurred to me to wonder about the emergency light, but once Matt mentioned it, I realized it was a good question. I didn't have time to reflect on it, though, because I heard the backdoor open. I pulled my face away from the window and looked around to see John standing in the opened door, the walking cane held in front of his chest protectively. "Close the door!" Matt cried and was moving with a speed that I look back on and admire. Given how much alcohol we consumed, I don't think I could have been quite so on the ball. Alex swore. I looked around at him and saw that he was staring out the window, eyes bulging. "John, get back in here, man! It's coming this way!" I looked out the window and saw that Alex was right -- the thing in the yard was moving back toward the house, and it was moving fast. It was no longer crouching and its legs pumped furiously as it rushed toward the back door. Toward an intensely drunken John. Matt grabbed John by the shoulder and yanked him back into the house. John lost his footing and the cane flew askew, falling near the window. He toppled and landed on his chest, groaned, and blacked out. Matt slammed the back door and twisted the bolt lock. Alex backed away from the window in a hurry, screaming several colorful words that I'm not allowed to share here. The door shuttered in its frame and the thud that accompanied the impact was deafening in the quiet that had fallen over the four of us. Matt was leaning against the door. A terrified bark of laughter escaped him when the thing collided with the door. His nerves were frazzled, I suppose, and I don't blame him for laughing. The sound of that single mad burst caused me to let out my own bitter hoot. Oddly enough, I felt a whole lot better after that, less tense (I guess it's true what they say -- laughter in the face of terror is perfectly natural).

The four of us held hard for at least two minutes. John lay on the floor, asleep or unconscious; Alex stood in the hallway leading to the kitchen, his arms crossed over his chest; Matt continued to lean against the door; I stood near the window, looking out into the darkness. I didn't see the thing, nor did the emergency light ever come on. Finally, I walked closer to the window and pressed my face against it again. I think I heard Alex take in a sharp breath. Maybe he was going to tell me not to get so close to the window, maybe not. I don't know. What I do know is that there was no sign of the thing that had been making that sound outside the bathroom window. Alex, Matt and John remained at my house for the rest of the night.

I went and locked the other two exterior doors while Alex and Matt helped John into the guest bedroom. When he woke up the next morning, he didn't remember anything after we initially saw the thing come out from under the window, and even that was a bit hazy in his brain. He wasn't entirely sure he didn't just dream the whole thing. The only reason he's even willing to entertain the idea that it might have actually happened is because the rest of us corroborated what he remembers.

I haven't seen the thing that was making the sound outside the window again, but I don't go out into the backyard during the night anymore, and I've had the emergency light replaced with a full-time street lamp bulb (when the sun starts to go down, the light activates and doesn't go off again until first light). I don't know what that thing was. After seeing it in my back yard, I reckon it enjoys scaring people. I'm sure it could have gotten into the house if it really wanted to. There were plenty of windows that it probably could have shattered, but it didn't. Like I said, I think it just wanted to scare us. I hope that's all it wanted. May I never have to find out otherwise."

March 21, 2011

"There is a rather long and winding road in Singapore that's really beautiful in the daytime...

Lush green trees and bushes line the sides of the road and large residential properties sit on both sides. It gets especially breath-taking in the evenings, when the evening sunlight streams across the trees, onto the brown leaves scattered on the road.

We don't get to see much of such places over here, given how small our island state is. It's one of the places I love to drive through...but only in the daytime now, and only if I absolutely have to.

And never in the night!

About a year ago, I had a close friend, K, come visit me in Singapore and it was a happy reunion when I went and collected her from the airport. We had a great time catching up on lost time and talking about our lives and how much we'd progressed since we first met. In fact, we got so engrossed chatting and laughing, that it was too late when I realized I'd missed my turn, and had to make a huge U-turn to get to my friend's hotel.

Groaning inwardly and not wanting her to know that I'd gone the wrong way, I simply drove on and continued talking with her, when I realized that I was headed back for the highway, which leads right back to the airport!

Just as I was about to tell K how silly I was to miss my turn, I saw the entrance to that peaceful winding road and thought it would be a great idea to show her what I felt was one of Singapore's more beautiful spots. So I gladly turned in, and proceeded to tell her about this spot which I'd always enjoyed driving on...

As we turned into the road and drove along, the first thing I noticed was that there were no other cars on the road, which I attributed to the late hour - K had arrived at about 11.30 pm so by the time we got here, it was already about 12.30...past midnight. We were still having a great time, singing along to some silly song on the radio and I remember K remarking endlessly about how big the houses were and how nice it must be for people to live on this road.

Just as I leant forward to turn up the volume on the radio, K suddenly barked in a hoarse whisper, "Drive faster!" Confused and taken aback by her sudden change in demeanor, I looked back onto the road and was startled by the figure of a lone jogger on the left hand side of the road.

"What's he doing here at this late hour?" I wondered softly aloud, sensing that something was not quite right by this time, and glanced around at K who had turned quite pale by this time."K?" I probed, "Are you ok?"

K then grabbed my hand, shocking me as her hand was ice cold, and said shakily, "Damnit G, drive!" Needless to say, I stepped on the gas as hard as I could, overtaking the jogger. As I looked in my rear-view mirror, I got the shock of my life - the jogger was running just behind my car!

It didn't make sense, I was going at least 90 km/h by now and still picking up speed, yet he was following me so closely! I floored it and gripped my steering wheel so tight I'm not sure how I managed to move it around, given how curvy the road was. I was certain by then, that we were both in big trouble, and was kicking myself for taking this route in the first place.

Then K whimpered, and I thought I heard her starting to cry. 2 seconds later, I realized why. He was running alongside my car now, I swear, by this time, I almost swerved the whole car out of fright. From the corner of my eye, I saw that he wasn't really running, but just seemed to be...floating alongside us!

Believe me, I never knew what real fear tasted like, until that night. Then the worst happened...He turned and looked right at me, and for some reason, I turned and looked back...

Dressed in a casual polo T-shirt, he looked like any normal human man, probably in his early thirties, of mixed heritage...only the entire right side of his face was all smashed up and I could see some parts of his skull. He looked angry, yet, his eyes were the most frightening of all. They were so big, yet, so lifeless. But most of all, he didn't have eyeballs...only whites.

I looked at my side-view mirror and only saw the empty road reflected where he should have been, and knew that if this went on any longer, I would certainly have a heart attack!

Then as suddenly as he appeared, he was gone. Gone from my rear-view and side-view mirrors. I sped on and almost cried from relief when I saw the street lamps on the main road just up ahead. I almost got myself into an accident when I went careening out onto it!

It's been about a year since it happened, and I haven't gone back on that road since! Incidentally, I was in a taxi just last week...After a few drinks, and after chatting with the taxi driver for a bit, I thought I'd ask him if he's been on that road. He replied, "NO WAY am I driving on that road at night! Not even if you paid me extra! I'll gladly drop you off at the roadside!"

When I asked him why, he told me that his other cabbie friends have seen this lone jogger and also experienced the same thing as I did. Sometimes the man would appear in front of the vehicle and go on running backwards, (!!) and other times, he would just be following the vehicle closely.

According to what he's heard, this jogger died in a hit-and-run accident and the rogue driver was never found. I guess he's since taken it upon himself to try and locate his killer, therefore, the hauntings. Finally, when I asked K why she told me so urgently to drive faster when she saw him jogging alongside the road (after all, I've seen people jogging late at night, it's nothing unusual), she told me this..."Because I already saw him jogging along the MAIN road even before we entered the curvy road. At first I didn't think much of it, but when I saw him again inside, I knew that there was no way any human being could run that quickly, so that was when I told you to speed up."

I've since done quite a bit of research on places with paranormal activity and now avoid them like the plague! Don't want to make the same mistake again!!"

March 20, 2011

(Sorry there's no picture, but I couldn't find one creepy enough to match this story...you'll just have to use your imagination!)

"Looking back after 34 years, I can say with a fair amount of certainty that the house I grew up in on Main Street of Pine Island, Minnesota, was not haunted...

Any creepy feelings or strange bump- in-the-night memories can now easily be explained away by casting the blanket of "overactive child's imagination" over the incident.

Except, of course, for one particular incident...

When I was three years old, I still shared a room with my older brother, who was five.

I don't remember the month, the day of the week, or even what season it was when this event occurred, but I do distinctly remember waking up in my bed lying flat on my back looking up at the ceiling.

There was a slanted rectangle of light created by the moon shining through the window.

I remember wondering what had woken me, when in the space of a breath, a desperate feeling of sick dread filled my entire body.

I turned my head to the left, and there, at the side of my bed, was a small, thin, human head, approximately six inches away from my face, with it's chin resting on the side of my mattress.

I have always known exactly what a rabbit feels when it quits breathing and becomes still as a stone when confronted with danger, because that is precisely what I did.

I felt my skin grow cold and for the first (and up to now, the last) time in my life, when I experienced pure terror.

My bladder released itself but I didn't move a muscle...didn't blink...didn't even want to breathe.

I remember the head had very pale, pasty skin with lips that were pulled up away from the very human looking teeth as if they were dried out.

The hair was black, coarse, and lank, but I remember individual hairs sticking up on the top, like a person who hasn't combed their hair in a very long time.

I could see the moonlight glinting off the whites of the left eye, but the right eye was in shadow. The irises were just dark.

After a time, which must have been only seconds, I was able to gather up enough courage to close my eyes.

At this point, I remember saying silently to myself over and over again "please go please go please go please go..."

There was a barely perceptible whisper of movement on the mattress and with it, the cold fear disappeared.

I opened my eyes, and it was gone.

I remember moving to the far side of the bed and telling myself to stay awake until dawn, but I cannot say for sure whether or not I made it.

Many years later, while telling ghost stories with some friends in my freshman year of college, a boy related the tale of seeing a thin, grey-skinned arm covered with black, wiry hair come up to the side of his crib and wave back and forth at him.

I told my story of the head, and for some reason, we both became convinced it was the same creature.

March 16, 2011

As promised, here is the beginning of a whole new set of spine-tingling tales!

I will be numbering them, to keep them in order, in case you miss a day or two...and just to make things easier on myself as well.﻿

Today's Tale is about a lady who thought she had finally found her dream house...but it soon became a SCREAM house!

I hope you enjoy it! ;)

GONE BUT NOT FORGOTTEN

(A TRUE STORY)

"I first moved into the old house in October 1995...

It was a rather large place, but not all my own. Built in the 1920's, the house was eventually split into two duplex homes. On one side was a studio (where I lived), on the other, was a two bedroom town home.

The attic to the entire house was sealed off, and was situated directly above my back room, which consisted of a make-shift bedroom, and a dining room.

My very first night, I heard creaking above me. It was windy that night, and I figured an attic was an attic, drafty. It sounded as if something was swinging back and forth.

I heard the noise on a consistent basis throughout the rest of the fall and winter, so sure that the seasonal elements was the cause of this, at first, disturbing noise, and then later, just annoying.

As spring came into existence, warmer weather and calmer winds began settling in. But the creaking still kept on.

Eventually, I asked my neighbor, who lived in the town home part of the duplex, if she knew what the mysterious noise was. She said she had not heard the creaking, and her bedroom wall was connected to the sealed off attic.

As the years wore on, I grew accustomed the noise, but other things began to take place...

One night, I awoke to scratching on the inside of my chimney.

Deemed a fire hazard, my landlady had the chimney sealed off from the fireplace years ago, so I was assured that whatever creature had gotten inside the chimney, would not get inside my home.

When I reported this to her, she informed me that she had the top of the chimney sealed off with cement to ensure the very thing I suspected would not happen. The scratching eventually stopped, but it gave me an uneasy and eerie feeling.

On several occasions, I woke up with the feeling of two people standing over me.

I had convinced myself that I was just letting my imagination run away with me. I lost lots of sleep over it though.

I had a storage closet, which was underneath the stairs of the town home, and on several instances when I knew my neighbor was not home, there was constant running up and down the stairs, like that of a child. My neighbor had no children.

I had lived there three years, when one day, I was visiting with my new supervisor at work. She had noticed my address from my employee file, and told me she lived a few houses down twenty five years earlier.

She asked me if I lived in the brick house on the corner. When I told her I did, she asked me if I knew the history of the house? This is what she told me...

Back in 1926, a young man built the house for his wife and new born baby boy. Shortly after moving in, his wife died of pneumonia. As the man's son got older, he had become a very adventurous lad. During the Christmas holidays in 1933, the boy's father, and whatever extended family were visiting, awoke to an empty child's bed.

Convinced his son had gone looking for Santa Claus in the middle of the night, (as he was talking excitedly about him the night before) the family frantically searched the snowy grounds, calling his name. The boy was not found...that day.

In the evening, trying to get him to relax, the man's sister started a fire in the fireplace to warm the house up.

As the fire blazed larger, brighter, hotter, twigs and small branches and leaves began falling into the fireplace from where that had become trapped inside the chimney. The family, gathered in the dining room, heard a loud crash, and went racing into the parlor.

There, in the dark pit of the fireplace, was the body of a young boy. It was the man's son. The forceful elements of the fire had loosened his body from the confines of the chimney. There was no physical evidence that the boy had met with foul play, and was quickly disposed of as such, so his death was ruled accidental.

It was determined, that the boy may have attempted to climb the chimney in pursuit of Santa Claus, and simply got stuck and suffocated.

Years would pass since the tragic accident of the boy in the chimney. One fall day in 1962, the local police received a call from a woman, claiming she had not seen her neighbor for nearly two weeks. If he had gone away, he would have told her so she could watch over the house. It worried her that his car was still in the driveway.She explained that he was a lonely old man who had lost his wife and son in separate tragedies many years ago. The police arrived to investigate his house. The search found no one home. As the police were leaving, the neighbor asked if they had checked the attic. It was an odd attic, as it was a part of the second floor, and not at the very top of the house, like most attics.

It was hard to catch, because the door to the attic was inside one of the bedrooms, and looked like a closet door. When the police found the attic door, they stepped through, and observed the old man the neighbor had been distraught about.

There he was, hanging from the rafters of the attic, and lightly swinging in the drafty fall breezes that filled the attic with coldness...and when he swung, there was an eerie, chilling creakiness."